I've never had a Pu-erh before but I am quite curious. I've had some oolong tea's from this site and they were pretty good, but I can't help but feel that pu-erh is a little out of place among the rest of their selection. Should I gamble and try this for my first or is there a better place to start for a beginner?

I went with the top link, the descriptions for that type of pu sound good to me. I'm curious though, how do you go about using the cake? Do you just break off a piece and throw the chunk into the pot, or are you supposed to break up the chunk into finer pieces before brewing?

Typically, I use a puerh knife to loosen a "chunk". You want to try to avoid breaking up the leaves any more than you have to, while separating them so that they can brew evenly. How you attack the cake is a matter of preference, although this post can give you a sense of how others go about it: http://puerh.blogspot.com/2011/02/my-system-of-breaking-puer-cakes.html.

AMH004 wrote:Typically, I use a puerh knife to loosen a "chunk". You want to try to avoid breaking up the leaves any more than you have to, while separating them so that they can brew evenly. How you attack the cake is a matter of preference, although this post can give you a sense of how others go about it: http://puerh.blogspot.com/2011/02/my-sy ... cakes.html.

Thanks, I read some of the other stuff on that blog and I have to say... This is probably the scariest tea I've ordered. Taste descriptors like "cave, fish pond and musty basement" are a little unsettling.

AMH004 wrote:Typically, I use a puerh knife to loosen a "chunk". You want to try to avoid breaking up the leaves any more than you have to, while separating them so that they can brew evenly. How you attack the cake is a matter of preference, although this post can give you a sense of how others go about it: http://puerh.blogspot.com/2011/02/my-sy ... cakes.html.

Thanks, I read some of the other stuff on that blog and I have to say... This is probably the scariest tea I've ordered. Taste descriptors like "cave, fish pond and musty basement" are a little unsettling.

Not to rain on your parade, but fish pond is usually a characteristic I would associate with uber low quality puerh tea, however, musty basement could be a good thing. With that said, you must start your puerh journey somewhere!

Chip wrote:Which pu-erh is described as "fish pond?" This is not the MountainTea offering ... just for clarification.

Oh no, this was coming from the blog posted earlier, I was reading through an introduction post to pu-erh and the description for young shu was "earth/soil/mud, milk/chalk, lotus root, and in lesser teas pond, fish, cave". As you said; this is not referring to a specific tea from a specific vendor, although I have heard people talk about fish for one of the adagio teas.

Chip wrote:Which pu-erh is described as "fish pond?" This is not the MountainTea offering ... just for clarification.

Oh no, this was coming from the blog posted earlier, I was reading through an introduction post to pu-erh and the description for young shu was "earth/soil/mud, milk/chalk, lotus root, and in lesser teas pond, fish, cave". As you said; this is not referring to a specific tea from a specific vendor, although I have heard people talk about fish for one of the adagio teas.

Oops my bad I thought you were referring to a specific tea! Oh and yes I actually still have a full sample of that Adagio tea from over a year ago. It's called Yunnan Pu erh Gold and its extremely fishy to say the least. I recommend well-aged 90's HK stored teas before any western vendors agreed!

I'd suggest trying sheng (raw) first. A bad experience with shu put me off to exploring pu for a good while. As it's been said in so many threads already, samples, samples, samples. I enjoyed the sample packs offered by Bana Tea, but there are many vendors to aquire samples from.

Magenta there are deffinetly better introductions to puerh then this. it's a bit strange imo

little too soily, muddy, earthy in an unpleasant way, thankfully not fishy or very wet though, zero sweetness, did have some interesting bodily effects but not enough to make me want to finish the session.

Not going to further pursue this one... but it is nice to know it's not a hidden gem (at least to me)

I didn't realize they shipped from the state I live in, so this actually arrived today which was a nice surprise.

My first ever pu-erh, I didn't really know what to expect, the cake itself smelled of hay, like an animal barn but without the animal smells. I don't use a scale or anything so I started out with a few small chunks in my yixing pot, enough to cover the bottom.

The first infusion tastes a lot like it smells; mellow grass or hay, no bitterness or offensive tastes at all. The second infusion is similar to the first, this time it's a little more woodsy, I guess I would say it reminds me of fresh wood chips, maybe a little smokiness in there as well.